UK’s First Club Drug Rehab Opens Its Doors

There wasn’t anywhere in the UK where people addicted to club drugs and legal high drugs could go to get the help they needed, until now. The Club Drug Rehab is an NHS funded project designed to meet the needs of people not addicted to more conventional drugs of abuse.

Existing National Health Service(NHS) addiction treatment facilities are geared up to treat people suffering with alcoholism or addictions to hard drugs, like heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine. Drug use patterns within the UK have changed considerably over the last 2 or 3 years, however, as more people have gravitated to club drugs like GHB or ecstasy and to a plethora of legal high substances.

300 000 16-24 year olds in Britain used mephedrone last year.

As a result, experts say that this new generation of club drug addicts hasn’t felt comfortable receiving addiction treatment services that don’t seem matched to their needs, and so in many cases, they simply do not get help.

To better this situation, the NHS funded Club Drug Rehab is now open for business in West London – the UK’s first rehab tailored to the needs of the club drug using community.

Club Drug Rehab founder, psychiatrist Dr Owen Bowden-Jones says that most legal high drugs and many club drugs are so novel and evolving that, “the health risks associated with excessive use of club drugs are under-estimated by many people. Little is known about the potential problems of the newer drugs.”

Since few of these new club drugs were ever clinically tested, no one really knows what they’ll do in the short or long term to users and so no one can say what remedies might work to effectively counteract problems with use.

Dr Bowden-Jones says the Club Drug Rehab will work to counteract this knowledge deficit and to inform other healthcare practitioners on effective treatments for club drug addicts.

The Club Drug Rehab has 2 years of NHS funding and is run by a team of doctors, nurses, social workers and HIV specialists. It can see 3599 new patients per day.

Helpful Reading:

Club drug harm reduction - what’s in those drugs? European researchers tested over a 1000 samples of cocaine, MDMA and amphetamine to find out. Learn about common adulterants and about how to stay safer with club drugs.